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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The EnglishNavigation Acts were a series of laws which restricted the use of foreign shipping for trade between
England (after 1707 Great Britain) and its
colonies, which started in 1651. At their outset, they were a
factor in the Anglo-Dutch Wars. Later, they were one
of several sources of resentment in the American colonies against
Great Britain, helping cause the American Revolutionary
War.

Contents

Early
legislation

Statutes had periodically been passed concerning shipping and
the regulation of English trade since 1381.[1]
Examples of the latter were the charters establishing Staple ports.

Background

The major impetus for the Navigation Acts was the ruinous
deterioration of English trade in the aftermath of
the Eighty Years War, and the concomitant lifting of the
Spanish trade-embargoes on trade between the Spanish Empire
and the Dutch
Republic. The end of the embargoes in 1647 unleashed the full
power of the Amsterdam Entrepôt and other Dutch
competitive advantages in world trade. Within a few years, English
merchants had practically been overwhelmed in the trade on the Iberian
Peninsula, the Mediterranean and the Levant. Even the trade with English colonies
(partly still in the hands of the royalists, as the English Civil
War was in its final stages and the Commonwealth of England had not
yet imposed its authority throughout the English colonies) was
"engrossed" by Dutch merchants. English direct trade was crowded
out by a sudden influx of commodities from the Levant,
Mediterranean and the Spanish and Portuguese empires, and the West
Indies via the Dutch Entrepôt, carried in Dutch bottoms and for
Dutch account.[2]

The obvious solution seemed to be to seal off the English and
Scottish markets to these unwanted imports. The precedent was the
Act the Greenland Company had obtained from Parliament in 1645
prohibiting the import of whale products into England, except in
ships owned by that company. This principle was now generalized. In
1648 the Levant
Company petitioned Parliament for the prohibition of imports of
Turkish goods "...from Holland and other places but directly from
the places of their growth."[3] Baltic
traders added their voices to this chorus. In 1650 the Standing
Council for Trade and the Council of State of the Commonwealth
prepared a general policy designed to impede the flow of
Mediterranean and colonial commodities via Holland and Zeeland into England.[4]

Navigation Ordinance
1651

The Navigation Act bill was passed in October 1651 by the
Parliament of the Commonwealth of England led by
Oliver
Cromwell, reinforcing a longstanding principle of government
policy that English trade should be carried in English vessels. It
was reaction to the failure of an English diplomatic mission to The Hague seeking a joining
of the Commonwealth by the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands,
after the States of Holland had made some cautious
overtures to Cromwell to counter the monarchal aspirations of stadtholderWilliam II of Orange. The stadtholder had
suddenly died however and the States were now embarrassed by
Cromwell taking the idea quite too seriously. The English proposed
the joint conquest of all remaining Spanish and Portuguese
possessions. England would take America and the Dutch Africa and
Asia. As the Dutch, however, had just ended their war with Spain
and already taken over most Portuguese colonies in Asia, they saw
little advantage in this grandiose scheme and proposed a free trade
agreement as an alternative to a full political union. This again
was unacceptable to the British, who would be unable to compete on
such a level playing field, and was seen by them as a deliberate
affront.

The Act banned foreign ships from transporting goods from
outside Europe to England or
its colonies and banned third party countries' ships from
transporting goods from a country elsewhere in Europe to England.
These rules specifically targeted the Dutch who controlled a large section of
Europe's international trade and even much of England's coastal
shipping. It excluded the Dutch from essentially all trade with
England, as the Dutch economy was competitive, not complementary
with the English, and the two countries therefore exchanged few
commodities. This Anglo-Dutch trade, however, constituted only a
small fraction of total Dutch trade flows. The Act is often
mentioned as a major cause of the First Anglo-Dutch War, though it
was only part of a larger British policy to engage in war after the
negotiations had failed. The English naval victories in 1653 (the
Battle of
Portland, the Battle of the Gabbard and the Battle of Scheveningen) showed
the supremacy of the Commonwealth navy in home waters. However,
farther afield the Dutch predominated and were able to close down
English commerce in the Baltic and the Mediterranean. Both
countries held each other in a stifling embrace.[5]

The Treaty of Westminster
(1654) ended the impasse. The Dutch acknowledged the Act in
this peace, but it seems to have had very little influence on their
trade. For England the Act offered only limited solace. It could
not limit the deterioration of England's overseas trading position,
except in the cases where England herself was the principal
consumer, like the Canaries' wine trade and the trade in
Puglian olive oil. In the trade with the West Indies the Dutch kept
up a flourishing "smuggling" trade, thanks to the preference of
English planters for Dutch import goods and the better deal the
Dutch offered in the sugar trade. The Dutch colony of New Netherland
offered a loophole (through intercolonial trade) wide enough to
drive a shipload of Virginian tobacco through.[6]

The
Navigation Acts

The 1651 Act (like other legislation of the Commonwealth period)
was declared void on The Restoration of
Charles II, having been passed by
'usurping powers'. Parliament therefore passed new legislation.
This is generally referred to as the "Navigation Acts", and (with
some amendments) remained in force for nearly two centuries.

The Navigation Act 1660 added a twist to Oliver Cromwell's act;
ships' crews had to be three-quarters English, and "enumerated"
products not produced by the mother country, such as tobacco,
cotton, and sugar were to be shipped from the colonies only to
England or other English colonies.

The Navigation Act 1663 (also called the Act for the
Encouragement of Trade) required all European goods bound for
America (or other colonies) to be shipped through England or Wales
first. In England, the goods would be unloaded, inspected, paid
duties, and reloaded. The trade had to be carried in English
bottoms (i.e. vessels), which included those of its colonies.
Furthermore, imports of 'enumerated commodities' (such as sugar,
rice, and tobacco) had to be landed and pay tax before going on to
other countries. This increased the cost to the colonies, and
increased the shipping time.

This Act entitled colonial shipping and seamen to enjoy the full
benefits of the exclusive provisions. There was no bar put in the
way of colonists who might wish to trade in their own shipping with
foreign plantations or European countries other than England,
provided they did not violate the enumerated commodity clause.[7]

"English bottoms" included vessels built in English plantations
(i.e. colonies), for example in America.

The Acts were in full force for a short time only. After the Second Anglo-Dutch War, which
ended disastrously for England, the Dutch obtained the right to
ship commodities produced in their German hinterland to England as if these were Dutch
goods. Even more importantly, England conceded the principle of
"free ship, free good" which provided freedom of molestation by the
Royal Navy of Dutch
shipping on the high seas, even in wars in which the Dutch Republic
was neutral. This more or less gave the Dutch freedom to conduct
their "smuggling" unhindered as long as they were not caught
red-handed in territorial waters controlled by England. These
provisions were reconfimed in the Treaty of Westminster
(1674) after the Third Anglo-Dutch War.[8]

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Molasses Act
1733

The 1733 Molasses
Act levied heavy duties on the trade of sugar from the French West
Indies to the American colonies, forcing the colonists to buy
the more expensive sugar from the British West Indies instead. The
law was widely flouted, but efforts by the British to prevent
smuggling created hostility and contributed to the American
Revolution. The Molasses Act was the first of the Sugar Acts.
The act was set to expire in 1763, and in 1764 was renewed as the
Sugar Act, which caused
unrest with the colonists.

Repeal

The Navigation Acts were repealed in 1849 under the influence of
a laissez-faire philosophy. The
Navigation Acts were passed under the economic theory of mercantilism under
which wealth was to be increased by restricting trade to colonies
rather than with free
trade. By 1849 "a central part of British capital's import
strategy was to reduce the cost of food through cheap foreign
imports and in this way to reduce the cost of maintaining labour
power"(van Houten). Repealing the Navigation Acts along with the Corn Laws served this
purpose, but also led to the break up of the formal British
Empire.

Effects

The introduction of the legislation caused Britain's shipping
industry to develop in isolation. However, it had the advantage to
English shippers of severely limiting the ability of Dutch ships to
participate in the carrying trade to England. The Navigation Acts,
by reserving British colonial trade to British shipping, may have
significantly assisted in the growth of London as a major entrepôt
for American colonial wares at the expense of Dutch cities. The
maintenance of a certain level of merchant shipping and of trade
generally also facilitated a rapid increase in the size and quality
of the Royal Navy,
which eventually (after the Anglo-Dutch Alliance of 1689 limited
the Dutch navy to three-fifths of the size of the English one) led
to Britain becoming a global superpower until the mid 20th Century. That
naval might, however, never was sufficient to limit Dutch trading
power. The reason was that the Dutch trading system rested on such
a degree of leverage over overseas markets and shipping resources,
combined with a financial power that was only overtaken by Great
Britain during the 18th century (after the Glorious
Revolution), that it enabled the Dutch to put sufficient
pressure on the English to prevent them from sustaining naval
campaigns of sufficient length to wrest maritime concessions from
the Dutch.[9]

The Navigation Acts, while enriching Britain, caused resentment
in the colonies and contributed to the American
Revolution. The Navigation Acts required all imports either to
be sold in England or bought from England no matter what price
could be obtained elsewhere. The rationale was the theory of Mercantilism: the
more money one country or colony has, the more power it will hold.
The colonists resorted to smuggling. Writs of assistance were issued to
enforce the Navigation Acts.

'October 1651: An Act for increase of Shipping, and
Encouragement of the Navigation of this Nation.', Acts and
Ordinances of the Interregnum, 1642-1660 (1911),
pp. 559-62. URL: [3]. Date accessed:
27 April] 2007.

From Wikisource

The English Navigation Acts were a series
of laws which, beginning in 1651, restricted foreign shipping.
Resentment against the Navigation Acts was a cause of the
Anglo-Dutch Wars and the American Revolutionary War. The following
is the text of the 1651 ordinance.— Excerpted fromNavigation Actson Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

For the increase of the shipping and the encouragement of the
navigation of this nation, which under the good providence and
protection of God is so great a means of the welfare and safety of
this Commonwealth: be it enacted by this present Parliament, and
the authority thereof, that from and after the first day of
December, one thousand six hundred fifty and one, and from thence
forwards, no goods or commodities whatsoever of the growth,
production or manufacture of Asia, Africa or America, or of any
part thereof; or of any islands belonging to them, or which are
described or laid down in the usual maps or cards of those places,
as well of the English plantations as others, shall be imported or
brought into this Commonwealth of England, or into Ireland, or any
other lands, islands, plantations, or territories to this
Commonwealth belonging, or in their possession, in any other ship
or ships, vessel or vessels whatsoever, but only in such as do
truly and without fraud belong only to the people of this
Commonwealth, or the plantations thereof, as the proprietors or
right owners thereof; and whereof the master and mariners are also
for the most part of them of the people of this Commonwealth, under
the penalty of the forfeiture and loss of all the goods that shall
be imported contrary to this act; as also of the ship (with all her
tackle, guns and apparel) in which the said goods or commodities
shall be so brought in and imported; the one moiety to the use of
the Commonwealth, and the other moiety to the use and behoof of any
person or persons who shall seize the goods or commodities, and
shall prosecute the same in any court of record within this
Commonwealth.

And it is further enacted by the authority aforesaid, that no
goods or commodities of the growth, production, or manufacture of
Europe, or of any part thereof, shall after the first day of
December, one thousand six hundred fifty and one, be imported or
brought into this Commonwealth of England, or into Ireland, or any
other lands, islands, plantations or territories to this
Commonwealth belonging, or in their possession, in any ship or
ships, vessel or vessels whatsoever, but in such as do truly and
without fraud belong only to the people of this Commonwealth, as
the true owners and proprietors thereof, and in no other, except
only such foreign ships and vessels as do truly and properly belong
to the people of that country or place, of which the said goods are
the growth, production or manufacture; or to such ports where the
said goods can only be, or most usually are first shipped for
transportation; and that under the same penalty of forfeiture and
loss expressed in the former branch of this Act, the said
forfeitures to be recovered and employed as is therein
expressed.

And it is further enacted by the authority aforesaid, that no
goods or commodities that are of foreign growth, production or
manufacture, and which are to be brought into this Commonwealth in
shipping belonging to the people thereof, shall be by them shipped
or brought from any other place or places, country or countries,
but only from those of their said growth, production, or
manufacture, or from those ports where the said goods and
commodities can only, or are, or usually have been first shipped
for transportation; and from none other places or countries, under
the same penalty of forfeiture and loss expressed in the first
branch of this Act, the said forfeitures to be recovered and
employed as is therein expressed.

And it is further enacted by the authority aforesaid, that no
sort of cod-fish, ling, herring, pilchard, or any other kind of
salted fish, usually fished for and caught by the people of this
nation; nor any oil made, or that shall be made of any kind of fish
whatsoever, nor any whale-fins, or whale-bones, shall from
henceforth be imported into this Commonwealth or into Ireland, or
any other lands, islands, plantations, or territories thereto
belonging, or in their possession, but only such as shall be caught
in vessels that do or shall truly and properly belong to the people
of this nation, as proprietors and right owners thereof; and the
said fish to be cured, and the oil aforesaid made by the people of
this Commonwealth, under the penalty and loss expressed in the
first branch of this present Act; the said forfeit to be recovered
and employed as is there expressed.

And it is further enacted by the authority aforesaid, that no
sort of cod, ling, herring or pilchard, or any other kind of salted
fish whatsoever, which shall bo caught and cured by the people of
this Commonwealth, shall be from and after the first of February,
one thousand six hundred fifty three, exported from any place or
places belonging to this Commonwealth, in any other ship or ships,
vessel or vessels, save only in such as do truly and properly
appertain to the people of this Commonwealth, as right owners; and
whereof the master and mariners are for the most part of them
English, under the penalty and loss expressed in the said first
branch of this present Act; the said forfeit to be recovered and
employed as is there expressed.

Provided always, that this Act, nor anything therein contained,
extend not, or be meant to restrain the importation of any of the
commodities of the Straits or Levant seas, laden in the shipping of
this nation as aforesaid, at the usual ports or places for lading
of them heretofore, within the said Straits or Levant seas, though
the said commodities be not of the very growth of the said
places.

Provided also, that this Act nor anything therein contained,
extend not, nor be meant to restrain the importing of any East
India commodities laden in the shipping of this nation, at the
usual port or places for lading of them heretofore in any part of
those seas, to the southward and eastward of Cabo Bona Esperanza,
although the said ports be not the very places of their growth.

Provided also, that it shall and may be lawful to and for any of
the people of this Commonwealth, in vessels or ships to them
belonging, and whereof the master and mariners are of this nation
as aforesaid, to load and bring in from any of the ports of Spain
and Portugal, all sorts of goods or commodities that have come
from, or any way belonged unto the plantations or dominions of
either of them respectively.

Be it also further enacted by the authority aforesaid, that from
henceforth it shall not be lawful to any person or persons
whatsoever to load or cause to be laden and carried in any bottom
or bottoms, ship or ships, vessel or vessels, whatsoever, whereof
any stranger or strangers born (unless such be denizens or
naturalized) be owners, or masters, any fish, victual, wares, or
things of what kind or nature soever the same shall be, from one
port or creek of this Commonwealth, to another port or creek of the
same, under penalty to every one that shall offend contrary to the
true meaning of this branch of this present Art, to forfeit all the
goods that shall be so laden or carried, as also the ship upon
which they shall be so laden or carried, the same forfeit to be
recovered and employed as directed in the first branch of this
present Act.

Lastly, that this Act nor anything therein contained, extend not
to bullion, nor yet to any goods taken, or that shall be taken by
way of reprisal by any ship or ships, having commission from this
commonwealth.

Provided, that this Act, or anything therein contained, shall
not extend, nor be construed to extend to any silk or silk wares
which shall be brought by laud from any part of Italy, and there
bought with the proceed of English commodities, sold either for
money or in barter: but that it shall and may be lawful for any of
the people of this Commonwealth to ship the same in English vessels
from Ostend, Nieuport, Rotterdam, Middelburg, Amsterdam, or any
ports thereabouts, the owners and proprietors first making oath by
themselves, or other credible witnesses, before the Commissioners
of the Customs for the time being or their deputies, or one of the
Barons of the Exchequer, that the goods aforesaid were so bought
for his or their own proper account in Italy.

This work is in the public domain worldwide
because the work was created by a public body of the United Kingdom
with Crown Status and commercially published prior to 1960.